


Something I Can't Make Sense Of

by BarefootWanderer



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Body Horror, Cecil is Inhuman, Consentacles, Eldritch Abomination Cecil, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Freaked Out Carlos, M/M, Monster porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:58:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootWanderer/pseuds/BarefootWanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Promised ages ago in response to this post on tumblr (http://mister13eyond.tumblr.com/post/59052338268/one-thing-i-want-to-see-in-night-vale-smut-that-i).  I hope to do it justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

Carlos was pressed against the door of his apartment, Cecil’s hands tangled in his hair, their breathing fast and shallow.  The noises that Cecil made into his mouth were small, desperate, painfully gratifying.  Without thinking, Carlos reached for the other man’s belt, clumsy with longing, and when Cecil was fully undressed, broke away from their kissing in order to look up at his panting boyfriend.

There were several Cecils in front of him, and more parts attached to them than one might reasonably expect.  Carlos’ breath hitched in his throat, any and all thought of lust utterly absent from his mind as it tried to comprehend the sight before him.  The image of the radio host seemed to be superimposed over itself at impossible angles.  Cecil smiled, and suddenly Carlos knew what it must be like to have an insect’s eyes, for his lover was kaleidoscoped in front of him and around him, maddeningly, sickeningly at odds with the facts of geometry and biology and physics that Carlos had loved for as long as he could remember.

Carlos was suddenly acutely aware of his own body.  There was an ache between his eyes as they tried to resolve the image they were seeing into something even remotely sensible.  He could feel his mind slipping slowly away from him, into a loss of sanity so profound that his concept of self would have no meaning- for how could he be, at all, with the total loss of anchoring fact that the thing in front of him seemed to indicate?  Lastly, but somehow most immediately, he was aware that something in the area above his navel was in revolt, and he barely had the presence of mind to run to the toilet, closing the door behind him, before his stomach gave up its contents and he collapsed, weeping, to the floor, shaking with the memory of things that no man should see- dark things, that moved at tangents to his world, that squirmed and writhed and were far, far from human.

Some time later- minutes, hours, days, it didn’t matter- there was a knock on the door.  The sharp, unpleasant _realness_ of the sound pulled him back to himself, and he sat up.  He was damp with sweat and tears, and his mouth tasted of bile.  He tried to remember how he had gotten on the bathroom floor, was struck with impossible images of too many hands, mouths that didn’t fit, something slimy and firm that might have been a tentacle or three or eight, and the terrifying, obvious wrongness of it-

The knock came again and Carlos lurched back to reality, retching, his stomach having been emptied of anything but bile long ago.  “Hang on,” he said, stumbling to his feet.  His shirt was unbuttoned.  Cecil must have done that.

Oh god.

_Cecil._

Those had been Cecil’s hands, which he knew almost as well as his own by now.  They had been Cecil’s eyes that blinked at him through a haze of terrible desire, almost like you would look at food.  They – all of them- had been Cecil’s mouths, baring Cecil’s impossible teeth.  They had been Cecil’s … tentacles?

“Carlos?” came Cecil’s voice.  “Are you alright?  Please say something.”

Cecil- the man he loved- sounded more honestly broken than he knew someone could sound, but he was not sure he could face the thing his boyfriend was again.  Not just yet, anyway.  Though it would certainly be a learning experience…

But that was a thought for later.  “Cecil?” he called.  “Are you…” he fumbled for a word and all that came to mind was so absurd that he giggled, aware that he was caught on the edge of madness.  “Are you decent?”

There was a mumbled affirmation and Carlos pushed the door open slowly. 

Cecil stood there, mostly dressed, looking embarrassed and concerned.  Carlos fought the urge to run and reached out to take his hand.  Cecil handed him a pack of gum.  “For the…” he gestured helplessly.  “You know.”

Carlos thanked him quietly and took it.  “I need to sit down,” he said, leading Cecil to a sofa.  He sat, chewed a piece of gum, and put his head in his hands, concentrating on breathing.  He nearly jumped out of his skin when Cecil laid a palm against his back, but successfully overcame the instinct that was telling him to flee.  The thing- _person_ , he corrected himself- sitting next to him felt normal, or near enough.  He could hear Cecil breathing, could feel the tension in the other man.  The Thing That Had Happened was just a memory of a memory now, dancing on the edges of his consciousness, a precipice he could avoid if he was careful enough.  And he had so many _questions_.

Slowly, gradually, he raised his head to look at Cecil. 

His would-be lover’s head was bowed in shame or guilt or maybe sorrow.  Carlos put a hand on his knee.  It took more effort than he was willing to admit.  This was Cecil.  There was nothing to fear here, not now.  “So,” he managed, his throat still raw with stomach acid.  “That was… something.”

“Yes,” agreed Cecil.

“Does that, uh, happen a lot?”

“Only when I’m, you know, excited.”

“So it’s going to happen again.”

“Well, I mean, only if we…” Cecil trailed off.

“Yeah,” said Carlos.  “I kind of figured.”

Cecil, his Cecil, fell achingly silent.  For Carlos, the quieting of that voice was too much to bear.  It was that voice that had kept him sane, grounded during his first year here.  It was that voice that had made him see Night Vale for what it was- terrifying, yes, but also glorious, beautiful, ready to welcome him into its dangerous, charming, wheat- and wheat-byproduct-free heart.  It was that voice that had seduced him slowly, gradually, over the course broadcasts and phone calls and hurried conversations at town meetings.  To have that voice fall silent was too much for him.  “Say something,” murmured Carlos.

“I’m sorry,” said Cecil.  “I forgot you- forgot you were different.  I didn’t mean to, to scare you like that.  We don’t have to do that again.”

“Is everyone in Night Vale… like that?”

“No,” said Cecil, obviously uncomfortable.  “But some people are.  Others... well, it’s very personal.  I don’t want to-“

“It’s fine.”  Carlos cut him off.  “You don’t need to tell me about anybody else.  What we’ve got here is enough to think about.”

Cecil wilted a little when he said that.  “Do you want me to leave?  If this is too much, then I can just… get out of your hair for a while.”

Cecil stood and made as if to go, but Carlos caught his hand.  “Don’t leave,” he said.  “Please.  I don’t think- I don’t think I can be alone right now.  I should sleep, actually.  Will you stay?”

Cecil nodded mutely, not quite meeting Carlos’ eyes.  Carlos rose, not wholly steady, to stand with him, and pressed his face to the other man’s collarbone.  “I love you,” he said into the warm, comfortingly human angles.  He felt Cecil hesitate before slowly bringing his arms up to enfold him.  The man bent his head, breathing raggedly into Carlos hair.

They stood like that for some time before Carlos lead Cecil to the bedroom and the two of them lay down.

“Are you sure you want me here?” murmured Cecil. 

“Yeah,” said Carlos.  “You- you feel good here.  And I’d like to talk about, you know, things, in the morning maybe.  When we’re both a little calmer.”

The next day he couldn’t remember what was said after that, but he would know that he fell asleep musing on what he had learned, and wondering how much courage was contained within him.  He loved Cecil, trusted Cecil, wanted Cecil, and if Cecil happened to be some kind of Eldritch Horror when he got excited, well- Carlos would have to think very hard about that.  Even now, half-dressed and asleep, Cecil felt better against his skin than anyone had in years; his breath was sweeter and his _voice_ \- Carlos wanted to bury himself in that voice, wrap himself in it, let it surround him and envelope him until it was all he knew.  He had always been curious what drowning would feel like, and somehow, Carlos knew, being surrounded completely by Cecil’s voice would feel much the same way.

He caught one of Cecil’s hands and couldn’t help but remember that two hours ago- had it only been two hours?- there had been many, far too many of them, arrayed in impossible configurations, emerging from places that were not wrists as Carlos knew them.  He abandoned that image almost as it arrived, though, because that was teetering too close to the edge of the precipice.  And despite the knowledge that utter madness lurked down that path, Carlos couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like.

He wondered how much of himself he could give away before he was lost completely.  Cecil loved him, he was sure of that, but how much of Cecil’s love could he endure?  Hours ago he had wanted all the man had to give him, and had known that it would never be quite enough (for what is love if not constant, unfulfilled longing?), but now that there was… more… of Cecil, he wondered if everything the man (Monster?  Beast?  Man) had to give might be far, far more than Carlos could afford to take.  He spent some time wondering if it would be worth it to find out. 

Before he fell asleep, he knew the answer, and snuggled closer into the arms of the man he loved.


	2. Chapter 2

That was how Carlos, the scientist, found himself yet again pressing his mouth to Cecil’s, frantically undressing the man as the heat between them grew. Cecil pulled away from him, a concerned, slightly dazed look on his face. “Carlos, what are you-”  
  
“Fucking you,” said Carlos roughly, working at the waistband of Cecil’s pants.  
  
“Are you sure? Last time…well, I almost killed you.”  
  
That made Carlos pause. He took a deep breath, comprehending for the first time how difficult this must be for Cecil. There was genuine fear in his lover’s eyes. “Can you try not to hurt me?” asked Carlos.  
  
Cecil nodded soberly.  
  
“And if I tell you to stop, will you?”  
  
“Of course,” said Cecil, looking almost affronted.  
  
‘Then I trust you,” said Carlos gently. “And I’d rather do this now, while I’ve still got the nerve.”  
  
Cecil looked at him very seriously, then nodded before allowing Carlos to strip him of his shirt. The scientist could feel the caution in Cecil’s movement, could sense the hesitation as Cecil’s fingers worked their way along the buttons of his shirt. He frowned, his resolve deepening, and pressed his mouth against Cecil’s neck. The radio host gasped, and the steady movement of his hands against Carlos’ shirt faltered. Carlos grinned and redoubled his efforts until Cecil was making unlikely noises into his ear.  
  
“You want to fuck me, radio man?” he murmured, nibbling somewhere in the area of Cecil’s collarbone. Cecil whimpered and Carlos took the opportunity to undo the man’s pants. Carlos’ eyes were closed when he stripped off the last of his lover’s clothing, and he could feel the change now that he was looking for it. There was a ringing noise at the edge of his hearing, that stopped suddenly as the world shifted a few degrees against itself. He felt a hum and buzz of protest as the universe sensed something different, foreign, feral.  
  
Carlos opened his eyes, and could never afterward quite remember what he saw. What he did remember, even years later, was the precipice. It was such a tiny thing, to take a single step forward, and not have to worry about anything after that. Madness- the utter surrender of himself to something ugly and impossibly old, something no human mind ought to contend with- was tempting in its simplicity. There would be nothing for him to worry about after that, for what could matter after he had accepted the thing in front of him, and given his mind wholly to that horrific, awesome reality?  
  
Cecil’s voice came to him from nowhere real, sounding as if it had been amplified over a great distance. The voice, the soothing, warming voice he loved, had loved even before he could put a face to it, spoke to him, pulling him back from the edge. He forced his eyes closed as Cecil said his name again.  
  
“Um,” said Carlos, breathing heavily, finding himself. “Can we- can we turn the lights off?” His throat was raw, as if he had been screaming. He might have been.  
  
“Of course,” said Cecil. Carlos couldn’t tell if he was quiet or impossibly far away. “Are you alright?” came his lover’s voice again, smooth and deep.  
  
“Yeah, just… Yeah.” He opened his eyes and in the darkness saw a shape ahead of him, too large for the bed and yet somehow contained there. He was reminded of the city beneath the bowling alley, seemingly distant but in reality tiny. This was nothing like that. He groped forward, half-blind, and found Cecil’s hand. “I’m okay, Cec, I promise.”  
  
There was a moment of hesitation, and then Cecil’s mouth was pressed against his as the radio host worked him out of the rest of his clothing. Carlos reveled in the wholly welcome, wanted, achingly perfect touch of fingertips against his skin, in the spicy-sweet taste of Cecil’s tongue in his mouth, at the touch of warm, (roughly) human skin under his palms and the small, wanting noises Cecil made into his ear.  
  
With a start, Carlos realized that there was at least one extra tongue in the equation, one- Cecil’s- pushing roughly against his own, and a third describing delicious, shivering arcs across his right ear. Suddenly, he was paying enough attention to try to take stock of the completely improper number of hands that had finished undressing him and were now exploring his back, shoulders, hips, hair. His breath caught in his throat and, frustratingly, all of the contact against his skin stopped immediately except for a single hand in one of his. “Should I stop?” asked Cecil’s voice from, improbably, behind him.  
  
“No,” gasped Carlos, desperate for more. “No. I just got a little overwhelmed. Take it slow?”  
  
“My pleasure,” murmured Cecil, this time into his mouth.  
  
“You’re being very patient with me,” said Carlos as the contact resumed. Part of him wanted to count the hands gently stroking him, and he couldn’t help but wonder how exactly Cecil was constructed. But those thoughts fell away as one hand moved slowly – oh so slowly- down his hip while another inched its way up the inside of one thigh, teasing.  
  
“Of course,” Cecil purred from somewhere in the region of his navel, while another tongue worked its way into Carlos’ mouth with obscene, demanding dexterity. Carlos took his time adjusting to the experience, part of his mind wondering if he should document it for posterity.  
  
That thought was thrust roughly from his mind as a lovely, distracting sucking sensation began on his right wrist. He whimpered slightly, wanting so much more than this, willing himself not to count the mouths pressed against him, not to try to quantify in lips and sets of teeth the love, the need that Cecil felt for him. And then there was another spot being sucked, just above his wrist, and then another, and another, finally half a dozen in all, in a line from his palm to the inside of his elbow. And they were all attached to… something.  
  
He tensed slightly as he realized that they were not in fact mouths tugging so deliciously on the thin skin inside his arm. Cecil must have felt it, because he pulled away. All of him.  
  
“Fuck,” groaned Carlos, collapsing back onto the bed. “Stop doing that.”  
  
“I didn’t want to do anything, you know- wrong. For you.” Cecil’s voice was harsh with worry and desire. Carlos groped blindly in the darkness to where he ought to have been and found nothing.  
  
“Cecil…” he murmured raggedly. Charming, handsome, infuriatingly patient Cecil- Carlos could not recall ever wanting someone more than he wanted Cecil at this moment. He also couldn’t recall being more terrified, but that was somehow secondary to his throbbing cock and the haze of lust. “Cecil, please. I- I need you to touch me.”  
  
“Even though…?” The question trailed off, was completed by a touch on Carlos’ stomach from the wrong direction entirely. The reason for Cecil’s worry, Carlos saw despite the hot ache between his legs and behind his eyes, was long, dark, thin, and prehensile. It came with suckers. He didn’t know what Cecil planned to do with that, but a split second after asking himself that question realized there was no wrong answer. It was Cecil. He wanted all of Cecil, regardless of how much of him there was.  
  
“Tentacles,” Carlos managed breathlessly. “Yes. Absolutely.” His hands found flesh, warm and yielding. There were mouths again, breathing hotly against his fingertips, pressed inside one thigh, tonguing an ear. He reached out, found a hand, and brought it to his lips, sucking with agonizing slowness on each digit in turn. The breaths he could hear and feel sped up, and he felt himself grow braver as a mouth- Cecil’s mouth, in Cecil’s voice, choked out his name in a way he had before now only dreamt about.  
  
It was intoxicating, that much contact, and Carlos reveled in it, allowing himself to sink into the sensation. There was a line of suckers on his arm again, another at the base of his spine. He was not sure when he had been propped half-upright, but he had. There was a hand clasping the back of his neck, another tracing circles around his ankle bone, at least two in his hair, and if he thought hard enough there seemed to be one pushing out from the general area of his spleen. It was almost numbing, to feel so much at once, and he never wanted it to end, but more pressingly, he wanted badly to come.  
  
He was hard, harder than he had been in ages (though it had been an embarrassingly long time since he had been naked with someone who wanted him to be that way), and despite the not-insignificant part of his mind that was screaming in terror and confusion, it was nice to be wanted. It was especially nice to be touched- gently, longingly, by more limbs than was physically or even logically possible. The hands were warm and gentle, and the tentacles- well, they were something, that was certain. Carlos thought abstractly that it might be nice to take some time to study them.  
  
They were warmer than he had expected, and on the whole, somewhat drier, though not unpleasantly so. They were flexible, strong, but strangely delicate. There were several of them, and as Carlos found himself idly wondering just how many “several” constituted, they curled tighter around him.  
  
One slipped under the small of his back, drawing shivers as it went. Two went around his shoulders, holding him tightly, warmly, and without mercy. He found that his legs were tangled in them, and his arms, and there was suddenly a dearth of bed beneath him as he was lifted into the air.  
  
Carlos’ world fell away. Suddenly he realized that he could see nothing but vague shapes, could hear nothing but heavy breathing and the noises of mouths on flesh, could not gauge the distance he had been lifted. He was surrounded by writhing, warm things and the memory of the night before came back to him, raging through his mind and shaking him to his core with its impossibility. It was suddenly, inexplicably, irresistibly too much. He screamed.  
  
Cecil- darling, perfect Cecil- stopped moving, almost entirely. He shifted something slightly, so that Carlos could feel cool air on his face and could just make out a hint of starlight from the window. And then, miraculously, he spoke.  
  
“Carlos, Carlos, what can I do? Oh, gods below, are you alright? Tell me what you need, love. Please.”  
  
The stream of words from Cecil’s mouth brought Carlos back to himself. “Cecil,” he gasped, and then again. “Cecil.” He caught his breath. “Could you- could you put me down? You’re amazing, but you’re also… everywhere. A solid surface, something I can make sense of might…”  
  
He trailed off as Cecil lowered him back to the bed, cooing. “Thank you. I’m sure this is… weird for you. Having me panic. You’re being really great about it.”  
  
“It’s not ideal,” answered Cecil, comfortingly close to Carlos’ face. “But I can’t say I blame you.” He paused, and Carlos could feel him thinking, weighing the thing he was about to say. “Would it make it worse if I told you this is the farthest a human being has ever been willing to go with me?”  
  
Carlos let out the breath he had been holding and sat up. It was nice to have his feet on the floor again. “So- uncharted territory then? We’re flying blind?”  
  
Cecil bristled. Literally.  
  
“Ouch.”  
  
“Sorry. And no. There are… reference materials. Which I consulted. Frequently and with enthusiasm.”  
  
“Reference materials?” Carlos took a moment to parse the phrase, taking into account the overwhelming sense of an eyebrow wiggle that had come with it. “Reference materials? Cecil, did you watch porn for me?”  
  
“Well, not just for you. But I may have… brushed up recently,” purred Cecil as a hand trailed gently along the inside of his knee.  
  
Carlos made an extremely undignified noise at that thought, and Cecil laughed. The scientist suddenly found himself with an armful of something warm and squirming (Cecil, an armful of Cecil) and a mouthful of Cecil’s rich laughter as a mouth was pressed against his. “I love you,” he murmured against the familiar lips, as something that was not a hand tightened against the back of his neck.  
  
The mouth (Carlos thought it was the same one) found its way down to his collarbone while another found his hand and began to kiss his palm lightly. Carlos bit back a flicker of panic, trying to reassure himself that the parts surrounding him all belonged to the man he loved. “Talk to me,” he gasped. “Please, Cecil.”  
  
Cecil laughed again, more quietly, and the sound seemed to reverberate endlessly around and within him. “Of course,” he said gently. Carlos tried to pinpoint the direction and gave up once he could feel lips murmuring soundlessly against his lower back.  
  
“You’re terribly handsome, you know,” came Cecil’s voice from somewhere above him. “Such lovely strong hands, with all those exciting calluses, a nice jaw, broad shoulders.” Cecil touched each part of him in turn, running hands and mouths and nameless extra limbs gently across Carlos’s skin until he felt that he would burst from the tension building inside of him, just beneath the surface. “And that hair.” Cecil punctuated this by tangling at least two hands in Carlos’ hair and pulling just enough to make him hiss in pain.  
  
“Do that again.” Cecil complied, and Carlos moaned. “Cecil- Cecil, I need to touch you. Please.”  
  
Carlos could almost hear Cecil pursing his lips as he answered. “But you are touching me.”  
  
“Not enough,” said Carlos roughly. “I want to know you’re enjoying this as much as I am.”  
  
“Oh, I am,” murmured Cecil. Carlos huffed in frustration. “But if you insist…”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“I have to warn you Carlos, this may be sticky.”  
  
Carlos was okay with that. He was surprised by how much more than okay that sounded, and expressed his eagerness in the first way that sprang to mind. He reached for the mouth at his neck, fingers making contact with something warm and slightly scaly, and tipped it upward until it met his lips. He teased his tongue into Cecil’s mouth, grinning as the other man whispered pleasant, dirty things into his ear.  
  
“You promised something sticky.” Carlos’ voice was husky with nerves and longing.  
  
Cecil must have noticed the tremor in the words, because some of him pulled away, letting Carlos’ hand fall back to the bed. “Carlos, are you-”  
  
“Really fucking turned on right now? Yes, Cecil.”  
  
Cecil made a tiny, annoyed sound. “Are you scared?” he finished, more loudly than was necessary.  
  
Carlos licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, a little.” Cecil, all of him, stopped moving. Carlos groped blindly in the dark and found a hand. “Cec, I’ve been pretty consistently scared since I got to this town. And frankly, you are kind of scary. But I feel safer here, with you, than I have in years, even before Night Vale. And I trust you, Cecil Gershwin Palmer. I just need you to return the favor.”  
  
“Oh, Carlos, of course I trust you.”  
  
“I know.” Carlos took a deep breath, tried to meet Cecil’s eyes, and failed. “So- sticky, huh?”  
  
Cecil kept his grip on Carlos’ hand, guiding him until his fingers touched something warm and soft and, as promised, sticky. Cecil hissed, somehow everywhere, as Carlos ran his hand over the bulbous, gooey surface. “Good?” he murmured knowingly.  
  
Cecil whined in response, and Carlos felt breath ghosting over his knees as his legs were pushed apart. He overbalanced, flopping heavily onto his back, his hand dragging across Cecil’s whatever-it-was until it found some kind of orifice. “Gods-” gasped Cecil in his ear, as another mouth bit not quite gently at his neck. “Oh, Carlos, it’s been so long…”  
  
“Yeah?” Carlos probed the orifice, gauging Cecil’s reaction as best he could. He seemed to be enjoying himself, so Carlos shifted, pushing his hand further into whatever he had found. He could feel Cecil tense around him, could hear, at the edges of his knowing, words panted in a language his tongue could never master. He wriggled his fingers and knew, somehow without hearing, that Cecil was crying his name out at a dog-whistle pitch.  
  
“Carlos,” Cecil’s voice came pleadingly from somewhere near his groin. “May I?” A tentacle wrapped itself around each of his ankles and tugged slightly in askance. “I want to touch you everywhere, Carlos. Please.”  
  
Carlos was nervous, unsure of what to expect, but the way that Cecil asked made it impossible to refuse him anything. “Yes, Cecil, go ahead. Just- tell me what you’re doing?”  
  
His feet were lifted off the floor, coming to rest at waist height as something warm settled between his legs. “I am going to suck you off, darling. And then, maybe…” as Cecil trailed off, a hand skated lazily down the inside of his of his thigh to trace the curve of his ass.  
  
Carlos had never been a brave man, but he had occasionally been a very, very stupid one. Sometimes there were questions that he knew, deep down, he couldn’t live without the answers to. Sometimes there were things he had to see for himself, assertions too absurd to be accurate, sights too spectacular to witness second- or third-hand, filtered through someone else’s eyes and ears and hands. Some things simply must be done.  
  
“Cecil,” he said very seriously, despite the heat pooling in his stomach and driving him to distraction, despite the sticky wetness spasming around his hand and the maddening way his lover (because he could say that now- lover) was gasping his name from several directions at once. “Cecil, some part of you- ideally an erogenous zone, if possible- is penetrating me tonight, preferably anally, hopefully soon. Okay?”  
  
The noise that Cecil made was far from human, and became stranger still when Carlos splayed his fingers and wriggled them, drawing a subtle gush of fluid. Carlos was about to speak when he felt a rough, warm, not-quite-human tongue lick a stripe up his penis. He barely had the presence of mind to curl his fingers against the nameless portion of Cecil’s unspeakable anatomy that his hand was occupying when he felt something warm and wet surround his cock. It wasn’t quite a mouth as he knew it, but it was close enough to be comfortable, and he was far past caring at this point.  
  
Carlos lost himself in Cecil’s touch in a way he had not done in years. It might have been the overwhelming influx of sensation- he was being lovingly, enthusiastically blown while a seemingly infinite series of hands stroked down his chest. His hair was being pulled. A mouth had latched on to his free hand and was sucking with deliberate, maddening slowness at each finger in turn. And there were teeth. Years later, Carlos would remember the feeling of Cecil’s teeth, needlelike, sinking into his shoulder, and he would recall that at the time it had seemed appropriate to pray that there was no venom.  
  
The thing about Cecil, though, was that Carlos might not have minded the venom. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice was telling him that he was far too enveloped in this for his own good, that he had a duty to maintain some kind of objectivism. That voice had been with Carlos for as long as he could remember, prudent where he was foolish, reserved where he was enthusiastic. He had learned, long ago, to trust that voice, to listen when it said that he was doing something wrong. He ignored it now, in a way he had never been able to bring himself to do. He threw himself into the moment armed with love and lust and a fear very like the one he had felt when skydiving, reaching out to shake hands with his own mortality. Only this time it was more than adrenaline coiling in his stomach.  
  
Carlos realized that he was dangerously close to finishing, and he had no idea whether Cecil was. That was rude, at best. He twisted his hand within Cecil, earning a keening gasp of protest. “Oh, don’t do that,” panted Cecil. “I won’t last.”  
  
  
Carlos grinned and found a mouth to kiss. “You don’t need to,” he murmured against the lips, and gasped as Cecil did something geometrically impossible with his tongue.  
“But you asked so nicely just a moment ago.” Cecil’s voice was low and predatory, and went straight to Carlos’ groin.  
  
“Don’t stop,” he groaned, feeling himself ready to come undone under Cecil’s attentions. Cecil, bless him, continued with renewed enthusiasm and Carlos arched upward into at least two mouths, falling gloriously, wonderfully, almost painfully apart.  
  
Cecil didn’t flinch, just took what his scientist was giving him like payment, or tribute left in terrified ecstasy at the altar of an unspeakable god. When Cecil pulled away Carlos kept his grip on whatever nameless parts of his lover he was holding as he felt the blush rising in his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Cec. That was-”  
  
“Perfect? I agree. However…” A hand swept gently across the inside of his thigh, making him shiver, and continued further down. “May I?”  
  
Carlos, worn out but enthusiastic, adjusted himself to give Cecil better access and said “Please. There’s, uh, lube. And condoms. In the nightstand. Christ, Cecil.” Something distinctly not a finger probed him gently, working its way around his entrance, stroking, goading, teasing him before slipping inside the newly-relaxed sheath of muscle. He wondered if he ought to be contributing to the process somehow, but Cecil seemed content enough, so he resumed gradually stroking at the sticky place his hand had found earlier.  
  
Cecil gasped. Cecil writhed. Cecil, or parts of him, convulsed, weirdly out of sync with one another in a way that Carlos found distracting, that pulled him into a strobe-light haze. He lay back and let Cecil stretch him gently, and basked in a soporific mix of arousal and afterglow, of the honest, deep-down love that was germinating in his chest, and of the sharp, acrid terror that had settled in him long ago and showed no signs of leaving.  
  
Soon, though, Carlos grew impatient. As much as he was enjoying Cecil’s patient, attentive teasing, and as rewarding as it was to hear him talk endlessly in response to Carlos’ own ministrations (“Oh, Carlos, you have the most amazing hands), he figured it was high time for something else.  
  
He found a tentacle with his free hand and tugged it into his mouth, sucking on it as slowly and steadily as he could manage. At least three of Cecil’s mouths gasped, and one seemed to be swearing, but not in any language Carlos knew. “You like that?” he rasped, pulling the tentacle from his mouth.  
  
“Masters of us all, yes.”  
  
“Should I do it again?”  
  
“Please,” whined Cecil, and the word was echoed a dozen times around him.  
  
“You have to earn it,” said Carlos, with as much authority as he could muster. The absurdity of trying to command something huge and sanity-destroying was not lost on him.  
  
“And how would I do that?” came Cecil’s voice, low and dangerous in his ear.  
  
Carlos opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. He propped himself on one elbow, aware that he was probably destroying the moment and said “Cecil, forgive me if this is rude, but do you currently have a penis?”  
  
“Several.”  
  
Well, that spawned several possibilities that Carlos filed away for future examination. “Do you use them for sex?”  
  
“Among other things,” answered Cecil in a tone that suggested patient amusement.  
  
“Oh. Good. I think that would be an ideal next step.”  
  
“Oh, I agree,” growled Cecil, pushing Carlos back down.  
  
Carlos stared at the ceiling, tense with anticipation, his cock making another halfhearted attempt to stand up. There was the sound of a drawer and the click of a bottle. He felt a cold slickness, and another tentacle worked him gently, caressing, dipping in and out. “Cecil,” he groaned. “Stop teasing!”  
  
Cecil hummed disapprovingly and Carlos heard a condom packet tear. Something significantly thicker than before prodded him, and Cecil, sounding breathless and perhaps a little worried said “Carlos, are-”  
  
“Yes, Cecil, yes. I want everything you can give me.”  
  
Cecil made a tiny, delicate noise, as if he were surprised, and pushed himself gently into Carlos. Everything went still. “Oh, goodness,” he breathed. “Carlos, you….” He trailed off helplessly.  
  
“Yeah,” Carlos murmured. “You too. This….” Was what? Terrifying? Wonderful? “Cecil, you’re perfect,” he said quietly as Cecil began to move.  
  
Carlos wanted a body to wrap his arms around, someone he could hold and touch and trace patterns on while they moved together, but instead he contended himself with parts. He knew that the whole of Cecil would be too much for him, so he grasped a hand and twined his fingers with Cecil’s. He pulled away from the sticky orifice, eliciting a mewl of disappointment, and found a tentacle to suck into his mouth. Cecil gasped around him, audibly and at pitches beyond his hearing, in English and what Carlos suspected was Double Spanish, and in some language that seemed to require a vastly different anatomy than what Carlos was familiar with.  
  
On a hunch, Carlos found the bulbous, sticky surface again, traced his way down to the orifice (Cecil gasped and managed “Please, Carlos,”) and pushed his hand in again, then pulled it out. Cecil made a rough, pleased noise and Carlos repeated the action. He established a rhythm in counterpoint to Cecil’s thrusts, wondering what kind of stamina his partner had. Then Cecil shifted, changing the angle, and Carlos stopped thinking for a while.  
  
He lost himself in the sensation of Cecil fucking him, touching all of him, of being wanted so completely and of wanting in return. He was acutely, almost painfully aware of every inch of his own skin, and where Cecil touched it, and of the sensation of Cecil inside him, merciless and loving, taking what he needed. There was a mouth on his cock, hard again, and he groaned, wanting and sated all at once.  
  
“Cecil,” he gasped, trying and failing to find words to express the love that was blooming in his chest, threatening to burst him open with its force.  
  
The sound of his name on Carlos’ lips only seemed to spur Cecil on, because he sped up. The bed began to creak, only to be drowned out by Carlos’ rough gasping as Cecil began to chant his name over and over again. Carlos could feel Cecil tightening around his hand, could feel the rising tension in the tentacles surrounding him, was tempted to quantify the exact change in pace that Cecil’s breathing had made, but abandoned that idea when Cecil swallowed around his cock and groaned at a pitch so low that Carlos could feel it vibrating within his very bones.  
  
“C-carlos!” he stuttered, and began to thrust so fast that Carlos could only tilt his hips and let him finish. “Gods, Carlos, I-” Cecil let out an inhuman sound, so loud that it made the scientist’s ears ring. Carlos tried to look at his lover, wanting nothing more to watching Cecil gasping and coming above him, but the darkness resolved itself into shapes too darkly terrible for his eyes, and something inside of him gave up. He collapsed backward on the bed, senseless, his last thought a heady mixture of lust and terror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is my first attempt at smut... have fun, I guess?


	3. Chapter 3

Carlos forced his eyes open, struggling to realign himself with circumstances that were drastically different from the ones he was anticipating. He decided to go in stages, to make sure he had everything right.

  * 1\. Environment
  * a. He was in his own bed.
  * b. He was alone
  * c. The lamp was on
  * 2\. Self
  * a. Headache
  * b. Ears ringing
  * c. Possible afterglow- tabling for later consideration
  * d. Still alone
  * e. Sore throat
  * f. Naked
  * 3\. Next step
  * a. Find water
  * b. Find Cecil
  * c. Find pants



 

He forced himself into a sitting position, struggling not from pain or stiffness but from the most intense physical exhaustion he could remember feeling. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, and he reached for it, only to be struck with an overwhelming wave of dizziness. The glass tipped, fell, and rolled across the floor when he struck it, and a noise came in answer from across the room. Carlos lurched nearly upright again and saw that he had startled Cecil into wakefulness. The man had been sitting in a corner with his knees pulled to his chest, probably dozing with his head on his arms.

He sprang up and practically vaulted over to Carlos’ bedside.

“Hey, you,” croaked Carlos with a smile.

“Don’t talk yet,” murmured Cecil gently. “Have some water first.” He refilled the glass with a pitcher Carlos hadn’t noticed and handed it to him. Carlos drank, smiling at Cecil, trying and failing to look merely comfortable, rather than lovelorn and slightly dazed. Cecil did not meet his eyes, instead taking the water glass from him and giving him some kind of clinical once-over.

He checked Carlos’ eyes, pulling on the lids slightly and pursing his lips at what he found there. He checked the scientist’s pulse, peered down his throat, tugged one of his arms out straight to check for tremors, and finally hummed into Carlos’ ear at what might have been a low F. When he was done, he pulled away rather abruptly and said, “You look like you’re recovering fine. There are tissues in the nightstand in case the nosebleeds start again. I- I’ll just be going now.”

Carlos- confused, hurt, and more than a little afraid- reached desperately for him, catching a hand. “Wait, what?”

Cecil, still refusing to look him in the face, responded “You need to sleep. I can see myself out.” He tried to pull away again.

“The fuck you can!” rasped Carlos, mustering as much volume as he could. “Cecil, sit down. What happened?”

Cecil sat, looking pained and… apprehensive? “Carlos, I’m sorry. I should have known. I just…. You’re so wonderful, and I really wanted to, and you said such lovely things to me, and I didn’t think it would be- you know. So bad.” He sat on the bed, head down, shoulders up, bracing himself, Carlos realized, as if for a physical blow.

Carlos raised a shaking hand to brush his boyfriend’s cheek and Cecil flinched. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Carlos’ voice was rough and broken and far from gentle, but Cecil leaned into his touch like a drowning man gripping a rope.

“I deserve it.”

He squeaked as Carlos pulled him into a rough hug, holding him as tightly as he could, given the heaviness in his limbs. Cecil pressed his face against Carlos’ bare shoulder as the scientist stroked his hair. “ _Never_ ,” he croaked. “Never, never, never.”

“But I almost killed you.” Cecil’s voice was thin and reedy, a ghost of its usual self, worse still from being muffled by Carlos’ shoulder. “You could have _died_ , Carlos. I can’t bear to think- How can you even stand to _look_ at me, after what I did?”

“Cecil, _no_ ,” said Carlos with as much force as he could muster. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, and he cursed that weakness, cursed the hoarseness in his voice, needing this, more than anything he had ever said, to come out strong and clear. “Cecil, listen to me: I do not regret a single thing we did last night, okay? Yeah, the fainting was not ideal, but now we know, right? For next time.

” Cecil lifted his face enough to speak and said “Next time?”

“Well… yeah. If you want to, obviously. But I do. Um, pretty frequently. If that’s okay.”

Cecil exhaled the breath he had been holding. “That would be nice,” he conceded, speaking into Carlos’ neck. Carlos nearly sighed in relief. He hated the idea of traumatizing Cecil, and the idea of forcing him into anything beyond his comfort level came very close to making Carlos physically ill, but he certainly didn’t want to give up sex just as he rediscovered it. Particularly if it was going to be amazing, albeit mind-numbing, sex with his multi-limbed extra-dimensional terror of a boyfriend.

“But what if it gets worse?”

The question jolted Carlos out of his reverie. “Cecil, sweetheart, look at me.”

He obeyed, lifting his head from Carlos’ shoulder, and Carlos took his chin in hand, tilting his face so that they were eye to eye. There had not been many pet names between the two of them. Words like that did not come readily to Carlos’ tongue, and Cecil seemed happiest applying adjectives to his name, rather than granting him an endearment. But this time the word came easily, and felt easy here, between the two of them.

“I am _fine_ ,” he said. “No damage done, barely even a headache, okay? And I think we could find ways to work around the… you know. Screaming.” Cecil flinched a little, and Carlos realized that it must be very difficult to have the man you love recoil in terror upon seeing you. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” said Cecil, clearly trying his hardest to sound nonchalant. “It’s happened before. Every time, actually.”

“Oh.” Carlos, lacking any words of comfort, kissed him, willing Cecil to believe that this, the fact of his own existence, was not a hurdle to be jumped, a hugely terrible facet of him that Carlos would have to learn to love. He wondered how many people had gotten Cecil’s clothes off and been unwilling (or unable) to go farther.

When they separated, Cecil spoke. “You’re actually the first person who hasn’t left in… years, now. Most people don’t get past the throwing up part.”

“Truth be told, that is my single sticking point.”

The laughter that escaped from Cecil’s lips bordered on hysterical. “That’s your sticking point? Not the tentacles or the goo or the fact that I am literally unsightly?” Carlos thought for a minute, and then responded as honestly as he could.

“No, all of that was pretty cool.” Cecil gaped at him, then snorted when Carlos said “I especially liked the tentacles.”

“You would.”

The smirk on Cecil’s face was just impudent enough that Carlos found himself needing to kiss it off, but he pulled back after only a few seconds, tasting the hesitation on Cecil’s lips. “Cec, I’m not made of glass. You can kiss me. Please kiss me.”

Cecil leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. He did not pull away afterwards, but rested his head on Carlos’ shoulder and murmured “Sometimes you’re just too good to be true. I keep thinking that the universe is going to realize its mistake and take you away from me.”

Carlos looked down at the man curling himself against him, remembering the year he had spent inexorably falling for him. He remembered finally waking up in a bowling alley wracked with pain and fear and the sudden, absolute knowledge that there was only one thing he wanted, and that if he got it, it was terribly, gloriously possible that he might never want anything else again. That feeling had been so abrupt in its strength that Carlos had been frightened, had nearly run, nearly left town that night and never looked back.

But he stayed. He stayed because that night behind the Arby’s Cecil had smiled at him, had, without speaking, promised him a life of sorts, if he was willing. And by god had the man delivered. Carlos could not recall the last time he had spent so long being this happy. He had been unsure that such things happened to real people. And now that it was here, in front of him, he would fight tooth and nail to hang onto it.

“Cecil,” he said with deliberate slowness. “I have yet to meet a thing in this world that could keep me from you.”

The hope that spread blushing across Cecil’s face was so painfully bright that Carlos took it upon himself to kiss him again, and again and again, until the two of them were nearly horizontal with Cecil spread messily across him. Carlos realized then just how much he needed to say to Cecil, and just how many words he lacked. “Thank you,” he murmured into Cecil’s hair.

Cecil pulled up and away to look at him.“For what?”

Carlos frowned. For what indeed? For destroying everything he held true or knew with certainty? For taking him apart, piece by tiny piece, and building him back up carefully, gently, to be stronger than before? “For loving me,” is where he finally settles.

Cecil hid his face in his hands, but not before Carlos was favored with the sight of a private, brilliant smile, one he felt almost intrusive witnessing. It was clearly not meant for his eyes- a pure, reflexive, expression of Cecil’s personal joy that Carlos took as a blessing, keeping the memory where he could find it later. “You are amazing,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of Cecil’s head. “Everything about you is just amazing. I never expected, never could have hoped-”

“In my experience, few people hope to be driven mad by their sexual partners,” supplied Cecil without rancor.

“I’m not mad, thank you very much.”

“It was touch and go for a little while.”

Carlos fell silent, unable to find words of comfort. There was no escaping the fact that Cecil was a danger to him- some fundamentals of biology were inescapable, and as much effort as he was willing to put into overcoming the limitations of his own physiology, he could only do so much. Cecil pulled him closer, and the answer found its way out of his mouth before his brain had parsed the full meaning of the sentence.

“Cecil, would you like to try blindfolding me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I suck at titles!


End file.
